Asimov's SF, February 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Even love?

  He laughed a short note as the killers buzzed and sipped. So Ilena claimed, but she just missed him when she played the tourists without him. It had been mostly tourists from China lately, filling the underwater resorts in the Sea of Cortez. Chinese were rich and tough players and Ilena had been angry at him for leaving. But he always left in spring. She knew that. In front of him, the scarp he had been traversing ended in a bluff, eroded by water that had fallen here eons ago. The plain below spread out in tones of ochre and russet, dotted with dusty clumps of sage and the stark upward thrust of saguaro, lonely sentinels contemplating the desiccated plain of the Sonoran and in the distance, the ruins of a town. Paloma? Zipakna tilted his wrist, called up his position on his link. Yes, that was it. He had wandered a bit farther eastward than he'd thought and had cut through the edge of the Pima preserve. Sure enough, a fine had been levied against his account. He sighed. He serviced the Pima settlement out here and they didn't mind if he trespassed. It merely became a bargaining chip when it came time to talk price. The Pima loved to bargain.

  He really should let the nav-link plot his course, but Ilena was right about that, at least. He prided himself on finding his way through the Sonora without it. Zipakna squinted as a flicker of movement caught his eye. A lizard? Maybe. Or one of the tough desert rodents. They didn't need to drink, got their water from seeds and cactus fruit. More adaptable than Homosapiens, he thought, and smiled grimly.

  He pulled his binocs from his belt pouch and focused on the movement. The digital lenses seemed to suck him through the air like a thrown spear, gray-ochre blur resolving into stone, mica flash, and yes, the brown and gray shape of a lizard. The creature's head swiveled, throat pulsing, so that it seemed to stare straight into his eyes. Then, in an eyeblink, it vanished. The Dragon chimed its full battery load. Time to go. He stood carefully, a cloud of thirsty killer bees and native wasps buzzing about him, shook free of them and slipped into the coolness of the Dragon's interior. The hens clucked in the rear and the Dragon furled its solar wings and lurched forward, crawling down over the edge of the scarp, down to the plain below and its saguaro sentinels.

  His sat-link chimed and his console screen brightened to life. You are entering unserviced United States territory The voice was female and severe. No support services will be provided from this point on. Your entry visa does not assure assistance in unserviced regions. Please file all complaints with the US Bureau of Land Management. Please consult with your insurance provider before continuing. Did he detect a note of disapproval in the sat-link voice? Zipakna grinned without humor and guided the Dragon down the steep slope, its belted treads barely marring the dry surface as he navigated around rock and thorny clumps of mesquite. He was a citizen of the Republic of Mexico and the US's sat eyes would certainly track his chip. They just wouldn't send a rescue if he got into trouble.

  Such is life, he thought, and swatted an annoyed killer as it struggled against the windshield.

  He passed the first of Paloma's plantings an hour later. The glassy black disks of the solar collectors glinted in the sun, powering the drip system that fed the scattered clumps of greenery. Short, thick-stalked sunflowers turned their dark faces to the sun, fringed with orange and scarlet petals. Zipakna frowned thoughtfully and videoed one of the wide blooms as the Dragon crawled past. Sure enough, his screen lit up with a similar blossom crossed with a circle-slash of warning.

  An illegal pharm crop. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. This was new. He almost turned around, but he liked the folk in Paloma. Good people; misfits, not sociopaths. It was an old settlement and one of his favorites. He sighed, because three diabetics lived here and a new bird flu had come over from Asia. It would find its way here eventually, riding the migration routes. He said a prayer to the old gods and his mother's SantaMaria for good measure and crawled on into town.

  Nobody was out this time of day. Heat waves shimmered above the black solar panels and a lizard whip-flicked beneath the sagging Country Market's porch. He parked the Dragon in the dusty lot at the end of Main Street where a couple of buildings had burned long ago and unfurled the solar wings again. It took a lot of power to keep them from baking here. In the back Ezzie was clucking imperatively. The oldest of the chickens, she always seemed to know when they were stopping at a settlement. That meant fresh greens. “You're a pig,” he said, but he chuckled as he made his way to the back to check on his flock.

  The twenty hens clucked and scratched in their individual cubicles, excited at the halt. “I'll let you out soon,” he promised and measured laying ration into their feeders. Bella had already laid an egg. He reached into her cubicle and cupped it in his hand, pale pink and smooth, still warm and faintly moist from its passage out of her body. Insulin nano-bodies, designed to block the auto-immune response that destroyed the insulin producing Beta cells in diabetics. He labeled Bella's egg and put it into the egg fridge. She was his highest producer. He scooped extra ration into her feeder.

  Intruder, his alarm system announced. The heads-up display above the front console lit up. Zipakna glanced at it, brows furrowed, then smiled. He slipped to the door, touched it open. “You could just knock,” he said.

  The skinny boy hanging from the front of the Dragon by his fingers as he tried to peer through the windscreen let go, missed his footing and landed on his butt in the dust.

  “It's too hot out here,” Zipakna said. “Come inside. You can see better."

  The boy looked up, his face tawny with Sonoran dust, hazel eyes wide with fear.

  Zipakna's heart froze and time seemed to stand still. She must have looked like this as a kid, he thought. Probably just like this, considering how skinny and androgynous she had been in her twenties. He shook himself. “It's all right,” he said and his voice only quivered a little. “You can come in."

  “Ella said you have chickens. She said they lay magic eggs. I've never seen a chicken. But Pierre says there's no magic.” The fear had vanished from his eyes, replaced now by bright curiosity.

  That, too, was like her. Fear had never had a real hold on her.

  How many times had he wished it had?

  “I do have chickens. You can see them now.” He held the door open. “What's your name?"

  “Daren.” The boy darted past him, quick as one of the desert's lizards, scrambled into the Dragon.

  Her father's name.

  Zipakna climbed in after him, feeling old suddenly, dry as this ancient desert. I can't have kids, she had said, so earnest. How could I take a child into the uncontrolled areas? How could I leave one behind? Maybe later. After I'm done out there.

  “It's freezing in here.” Daren stared around at the control bank under the wide windscreen, his bare arms and legs, skin clay-brown from the sun, ridged with goosebumps.

  So much bare skin scared Zipakna. Average age for onset of melanoma without regular boosters was twenty-five. “Want something to drink? You can go look at the chickens. They're in the back."

  “Water?” The boy gave him a bright, hopeful look. “Ella has a chicken. She lets me take care of it.” He disappeared into the chicken space.

  Zipakna opened the egg fridge. Bianca laid steadily even though she didn't have the peak capacity that some of the others did. So he had a good stock of her eggs. The boy was murmuring to the hens who were clucking greetings at him. “You can take one out,” Zipakna called back to him. “They like to be held.” He opened a packet of freeze-dried chocolate soy milk, reconstituted it, and whipped one of Bianca's eggs into it, so that it frothed tawny and rich. The gods knew if the boy had ever received any immunizations at all. Bianca provided the basic panel of nanobodies against most of the common pathogens and cancers. Including melanoma.

  In the chicken room, Daren had taken Bella out of her cage, held her cradled in his arms. The speckled black and white hen clucked contentedly, occasionally pecking Daren's chin lightly. “She likes to be petted,” Zipakna said. “If you rub her comb she'll
sing to you. I made you a milkshake."

  The boy's smile blossomed as Bella gave out with the almost-melodic squawks and creaks that signified her pleasure. “What's a milkshake?” Still smiling, he returned the hen to her cage and eyed the glass.

  “Soymilk and chocolate and sugar.” He handed it to Daren, found himself holding his breath as the boy tasted it and considered.

  “Pretty sweet.” He drank some. “I like it anyway."

  To Zipakna's relief he drank it all and licked foam from his lip.

  “So when did you move here?” Zipakna took the empty glass, rinsed it at the sink.

  “Wow, you use water to clean dishes?” The boy's eyes had widened. “We came here last planting time. Pierre brought those seeds.” He pointed in the general direction of the sunflower fields.

  Zipakna's heart sank. “You and your parents?” He made his voice light.

  Daren didn't answer for a moment. “Pierre. My father.” He looked back to the chicken room. “If they're not magic, why do you give them water? Ella's chicken warns her about snakes, but you don't have to worry about snakes in here. What good are they?"

  The cold logic of the Dry, out here beyond the security net of civilized space. “Their eggs keep you healthy.” He watched the boy consider that. “You know Ella, right?” He waited for the boy's nod. “She has a disease that would kill her if she didn't eat an egg from that chicken you were holding every year."

  Daren frowned, clearly doubting that. “You mean like a snake egg? They're good, but Ella's chicken doesn't lay eggs. And snake eggs don't make you get better when you're sick."

  “They don't. And Ella's chicken is a banty rooster. He doesn't lay eggs.” Zipakna looked up as a figure moved on the heads-up. “Bella is special and so are her eggs.” He opened the door. “Hello, Ella, what are you doing out here in the heat?"

  “I figured he'd be out here bothering you.” Ella hoisted herself up the Dragon's steps, her weathered, sun-dried face the color of real leather, her loose sun-shirt falling back from the stringy muscles of her arms as she reached up to kiss Zipakna on the cheek. “You behavin’ yourself, boy? I'll switch you if you aren't."

  “I'm being good.” Daren grinned. “Ask him."

  “He is.” Zipakna eyed her face and briefly exposed arms, looking for any sign of melanoma. Even with the eggs, you could still get it out here with no UV protection. “So, Ella, you got some new additions to town, eh? New crops, too, I see.” He watched her look away, saw her face tighten.

  “Now don't you start.” She stared at the south viewscreen filled with the bright heads of sunflowers. “Prices on everything we have to buy keep going up. And the Pima are tight, you know that. Plain sunflower oil don't bring much."

  “So now you got something that can get you raided. By the government or someone worse."

  “You're the one comes out here from the city where you got water and power, go hiking around in the dust with enough stuff to keep raiders fat and happy for a year.” Ella's leathery face creased into a smile. “You preachin’ risk at me, Zip?"

  “Ah, but we know I'm crazy, eh?” He returned her smile, but shook his head. “I hope you're still here, next trip. How're your sugar levels? You been checking?"

  “If we ain't we ain't.” She lifted one bony shoulder in a shrug. “They're holding. They always do."

  “The eggs do make you well?” Daren looked at Ella.

  “Yeah, they do.” Ella cocked her head at him. “There's magic, even if Pierre don't believe it."

  “Do you really come from a city?” Daren was looking up at Zipakna now. “With a dome and water in the taps and everything?"

  “Well, I come from Oaxaca, which doesn't have a dome. I spend most of my time in La Paz. It's on the Baja peninsula, if you know where that is."

  “I do.” He grinned. “Ella's been schooling me. I know where Oaxaca is, too. You're Mexican, right?” He tilted his head. “How come you come up here with your eggs?"

  Ella was watching him, her dark eyes sharp with surmise. Nobody had ever asked him that question openly before. It wasn't the kind of question you asked, out here. Not out loud. He looked down into Daren's hazel eyes, into her eyes. “Because nobody else does."

  Daren's eyes darkened and he looked down at the floor, frowning slightly.

  “Sit down, Ella, let me get you your egg. Long as you're here.” Zipakna turned quickly to the kitchen wall and filled glasses with water. While they drank, he got Bella's fresh egg from the egg fridge and cracked it into a glass, blending it with the raspberry concentrate that Ella favored and a bit of soy milk.

  “That's a milkshake,” Daren announced as Zipakna handed Ella the glass. “He made me one, too.” He looked up at Zipakna. “I'm not sick."

  “He didn't think you were.” Ella lifted her glass in a salute. “Because nobody else does.” Drank it down. “You gonna come eat with us tonight?” Usually the invitation came with a grin that revealed the gap in her upper front teeth, and a threat about her latest pequin salsa. Today her smile was cautious. Wary. “Daren?” She nodded at the boy. “You go help Maria with the food. You know it's your turn today."

  “Aw.” He scuffed his bare feet, but headed for the door. “Can I come pet the chickens again?” He looked back hopefully from the door, grinned at Zipakna's nod, and slipped out, letting in a breath of oven-air.

  “Ah, Ella.” Zipakna sighed and reached into the upper cupboard. “Why did you plant those damn sunflowers?” He pulled out the bottle of aged mescal tucked away behind the freeze-dried staples. He filled a small, thick glass and set it down on the table in front of Ella beside her refilled water glass. “This can be the end of the settlement. You know that."

  “The end can come in many ways.” She picked up the glass, held it up to the light. “Perhaps fast is better than slow, eh?” She sipped the liquor, closed her eyes and sighed. “Luna and her husband tried for amnesty, applied to get a citizen-visa at the border. They've canceled the amnesty. You live outside the serviced areas, I guess you get to stay out here. I guess the US economy faltered again. No more new citizens from Outside. And you know Mexico's policy about US immigration.” She shrugged. “I'm surprised they even let you come up here."

  “Oh, my government doesn't mind traffic in this direction. It likes to rub the US's nose in the fact that we send aid to its own citizens,” he said lightly. Yeah, the border was closed tight to immigration from the north right now, because the US was being sticky about tariffs. “I can't believe they've made the Interior Boundaries airtight.” That was what she had been afraid of, all those years ago.

  “I guess they have to keep cutting and cutting.” Ella drained the glass, probing for the last drops of amber liquor with her tongue. “No, one is enough.” She shook her head as he turned to the cupboard. “The folks that live nice want to keep it that way, so you got to cut somewhere. We all know the US is slowly eroding away. It's not a superpower anymore. They just pretend.” She looked up at Zipakna, her eyes like flakes of obsidian set into the nested wrinkles of her sun-dried face. “What is your interest in the boy, Zip? He's too young."

  He turned away from those obsidian-flake eyes. “You misunderstand."

  She waited, didn't say anything.

  “Once upon a time there was a woman.” He stared at the sun-baked emptiness of the main street on the vid screen. A tumbleweed skeleton turned slowly, fitfully across dust and cracked asphalt. “She had a promising career in academics, but she preferred field work."

  “Field work?"

  “She was a botanist. She created some drought-tolerant GMOs and started field testing them. They were designed for the drip irrigation ag areas, but she decided to test them ... out here. She ... got caught up in it ... establishing adaptive GMOs out here to create sustainable harvests. She ... gave up an academic career. Put everything into this project. Got some funding for it."

  Ella sat without speaking as the silence stretched between them. “What happened to her?” She asked it,
finally.

  “I don't know.” The tumbleweed had run up against the pole of a rusted and dented No Parking sign and quivered in the hot wind. “I ... lost contact with her."

  Ella nodded, her face creased into thoughtful folds. “I see."

  No, you don't, he thought.

  “How long ago?"

  “Fifteen years."

  “So he's not your son."

  He flinched even though he'd known the question was coming. “No.” He was surprised at how hard it was to speak that word.

  Ella levered herself to her feet, leaning hard on the table. Pain in her hip. The osteo-sarcoma antibodies his chickens produced weren't specific to her problem. A personally tailored anti-cancer panel might cure her, but that cost money. A lot of money. He wasn't a doctor, but he'd seen enough osteo out here to measure her progress. It was the water, he guessed. “I brought you a present.” He reached up into the cupboard again, brought out a flat plastic bottle of mescal with the Mexico state seal on the cap. Old stuff. Very old.

  She took it, her expression enigmatic, tilted it, her eyes on the slosh of pale golden liquor. The she let her breath out in a slow sigh and tucked the bottle carefully beneath her loose shirt. “Thank you.” Her obsidian eyes gave nothing away.

  He caught a glimpse of rib bones, faint bruising, and dried, shrunken flesh, revised his estimate. “You're welcome."

  “I think you need to leave here.” She looked past him. “We maybe need to live without your eggs. I'd just go right now."

  He didn't answer for a moment. Listened to the chuckle of the hens. “Can I come to dinner tonight?"

  “That's right. You're crazy. We both know that.” She sighed.

  He held the door for her as she lowered herself stiffly and cautiously into the oven heat of the fading day.

  She was right, he thought as he watched her limp through the heat shimmer, back to the main building. She was definitely right.